Posts tagged ‘Euro Zone’

Some economists have been expressing apprehensions of US and EU using India as an external markets to avoid the debt crisis they are facing. While the possibility of India accepting such a proposal is very high because Indian Government desperately needs more debt to meet its exponentially growing fiscal deficit and falling growth, I am convinced that even such a move will not help US and EU in avoiding the ongoing debt crisis and I also believe the current crisis is unfixable now within the framework of current financial system.

The author of one such post I read a few days back says that if India is used as an external market, even a billion dollar that is sucked out of the country can create 20,000 jobs in US and EU. But that will also mean a contraction of 60 billion dollar in India. This is because the velocity of money (money changing hands from one person to other person) in india for $1 is $60.

However, while the billion dollar per se is not even a peanut in the development plan of the economy of the size of US and EU but the key point that needs to be understood here is that EVEN THIS BILLION DOLLAR WILL NOT CREATE ANY PRODUCTIVE JOBS IN THEIR ECONOMY. The reason is that it is not absence of market or consumption that is preventing job creation but due to debt becoming difficult, the jobs sustained on borrowed money are reducing. US and EU DO NOT NEED ANY EXTERNAL MARKET, THEY ALREADY HAVE A HUGE MARKET IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY and that is why they have such a huge trade deficits. The demand contraction there is NOT due to surplus production which requires external market for consumption and to sustain production and thus employment in the economy. The Demand contraction there is due to debt restriction because it is debt which has enabled most of the jobs in these countries and which are in the service sector. These jobs in service sector are creating more consumers and in the absence of required production, the country in increasingly depending on imports thereby increasing trade deficits. Infact, in this era of easy money, the only thing governments do is to create money from thin air and flood the economy with cheap money without bothering if there is enough production to meet this propped up demand. Often lack of credit in 1930 depression is cited as an explanation on why credit is required, which is though true yet ignores the fact that the economy was productive at that time and running massive trade surplus. Here the situation is different. The economy is not producing and therefore running massive trade deficits to meet the demands propped up by phony service sector jobs. They started abjuring production after WW2 and eventually (in 80s) manufacturing was outsourced to China and Services to nations like India (remember the “buffalo to banglore” catchwords). By selling there cattles and farms, they have made huge money but who is the beneficiary of this globalisation? It is not the common people but the 1% rich, banking and corporate cartel. It is this greedy 1% that is stealing jobs from US and EU citizens.

All this while, when the citizens of these debt-ridden countries were enjoying debt financed prosperity, their economy was not producing. However because of the past credit worthiness, countries like China, Japan etc have not only been providing them goods but also the proceeds from the sold goods are being invested in buying government bonds. Now the problem is that these debt ridden countries like US and EU do not have enough manufacturing left, so the increase in jobs are only taking place in the service sector which means people consuming more. And this consumption is further increasing trade deficit and in turn debt.

Now the problem is why can’t we maintain a certain level of deficit and avoid a collapse? So it is around 1 trillion USD for US which China and Japan and US bond holders, QE etc all together are able to fulfill then whats the problem? First of all, same deficit each year does not mean same level of debt. Deficit each year gets accumulated and increase total debt and growing debt means growing interest payment. So maintaining same level of deficit means increasing interest payments. Secondly, the greedy corporate cartel has an obsession with growth. And the moment growth stops they start throwing people out starting reverse multiplier effect and a slow down (resulting in mortgage defaults etc). THEREFORE EXTERNAL MARKETS ARE NOT GOING TO HELP THEM. If they at all need market then they should focus on domestic market to reduce their trade deficit.

India, per se however may likely to do all wrong things as far as this UPA2 government is there and I strongly believe they will offer India as a market to US & EU, resulting in an inflation explosion because when foreign companies will start sucking out their profit, rupee will further get devalued and inflation will skyrocket. The Indian government anyway have no option but to seek more debt (to postpone the crisis) else the austerity measures will eventually result in liquidity crisis and bank collapse.

For the readers of this blog I would like to share following two very good videos to watch.